A black woman is Germany’s Next Top Model – Uma mulher negra é Germany’s Next Top Model!

A black woman is Germany’s Next Top Model

In another example that highlights the exclusionary and racist policies in the Brazilian fashion industry, a black woman was chosen as the winner of Germany’s Next Top Model. The beautiful black woman, Sara Nuru, a German of Ethiopian descent won the contest. In December of 2008, another black woman, Chloe Mortaud, was crowned Ms. France. Isn’t it ironic that European countries that have overwhelmingly white populations can recognize the beauty of African descendents, but a country like Brazil needs to adopt quotas on the runways so that black women have representation in a country with a black majority?

Although this may sound strange, the reason is quite simple. In European countries and in the United States, white people have always been the majority and the accepted standard of beauty too has always been white without any serious challenge. These types of countries have always been confident in their whiteness and thus the occasional non-white woman that wins a beauty contest, is a top model or is featured on the cover of a popular magazine, is sometimes hailed as an example of a diversity that doesn’t exist while posing no real threat to the white standard. In Brazil, on the other hand, elites have always dreamed of erasing a people whose African roots were too prominent in physical appearance. Brazil will never be accepted as a white country, thus, to create an illusion and to “improve” the image of Brazil to the rest of the world, the overwhelming majority of people presented in the Brazilian media look as if they are from Italy, Portugal or Germany. Brazil has always seen itself as a “racial democracy”; America believes itself to be the land of “equal opportunity”. But the possibility in the belief in this ideology is always more likely if one is the right color.